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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7620630" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 62: RAVAGER LODGE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 17</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 17</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 6</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 11</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> MARCI, humanoid construct</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 9 June 2019</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>Castillan stood on the top of the northeastern tower of Battershield Keep, looking out over the battlements. It was a sunny, peaceful day - or it was, until the dragonfly vessel came plummeting down out of the sky. It slowed at the last moment and came to a rough landing in the clearing just outside the stone keep. The elven bounder knew something was up at once, for Jinkadoodle normally parked the vessel on the floating sky-island of a cloud giantess friend of theirs, Zaralia, and used the <em>teleport runes</em> hidden in one of the extradimensional lower deck rooms to transport himself instantly to the keep. The fact that the gnome had brought the dragonfly vessel here surely meant something was up.</p><p></p><p>Sure enough, Jinkadoodle popped up onto the upper deck of the wooden ship and flipped the rope ladder down over the sides, starting to climb down before it had even completely unfurled. "Guys!" he cried. "Guys! There's trouble!"</p><p></p><p>Castillan leaped over the battlements, using his bouncer training to slide down the front side of the keep's walls and slow his fall. He hit the ground before Jinkadoodle did and ran across the lowered drawbridge to see what the problem might be. Behind him he could hear somebody - Binkadink, likely - raising the lowered portcullis so the other adventurers could follow him outside the keep.</p><p></p><p>"What is it? What's the matter?" prompted Castillan once the gnome pilot had leaped to the ground. The others raced up behind him while the little gnome paused to catch his breath.</p><p></p><p>"Blood - blood everywhere!" he cried. "And bodies; I think Zaralia's dead, and there's a dead dragon up there as well! I was gonna land at the edge of the cloud island like normal, only I saw the carnage - I didn't want to leave the ship up there in case whoever did that is still up there!"</p><p></p><p>"Good call," agreed Gilbert Fung. "Come on - we go check it out!" And then he turned and started back into the keep.</p><p></p><p>"Gilbert -- the ship's this way!" Castillan called after him.</p><p></p><p>"I know - I not climbing ladder if I can help it! I take carpet, meet you inside!" And while some of the others followed Jinkadoodle back up the rope ladder to the dragonfly vessel's upper deck, the portly mage went over to where the <em>carpet of teleportation</em> lay over by the stables in the courtyard of Battershield Keep. Darrien, Finoula, and Binkadink opted to take the carpet so they could bring along their animal companions; after a moment's hesitation, Malrin followed suit with Taihar, her dire fox. Once Grumps Junior, Taihar, Wrath, and Obvious had been teleported to the ship's interior, Binkadink rolled the carpet up and took it with him up the dragonfly vessel's rope ladder so they'd have it with them up on the cloud island; it was the easiest way for the animals to disembark.</p><p></p><p>Once everyone was on board Jinkadoodle brought the dragonfly ship up off the ground and flying into the clouds. It was the matter of less than ten minutes of flying before he approached Zaralia's cloud island. The first thing they noticed was that one of the two enormous apple trees - which grew apples the size of pumpkins - had been knocked over on its side. Near the tree was the sinuous body of Gozragoth, the cloud dragon who laired in the lower levels of Zaralia's island. And closer to the main building lay Zaralia herself, as evidenced by the blue tint to her skin. But the white cloud-stuff all around them was stained reddish-brown, the color of dried blood.</p><p></p><p>The dragonfly vessel made a perfect four-point landing on its leg-struts in its usual position (the far side of the island, opposite Zaralia's dwelling and observatory) and Castillan dropped the rope ladder over the side. The heroes disembarked, Jinkadoodle following worriedly in their wake.</p><p></p><p>As Hagan and Darrien approached the body of the cloud dragon, the half-orc sorcerer gave a sharp intake of breath as he noticed something he hadn't seen from the ship: the dragon's head was missing! Judging from the jaggedness of the neck-stump, it looked as if it had been chopped off with a bladed weapon. MARCI approached the headless draconic corpse and shone her red scanner-light over the creature's body. "This creature has been dead for several hours," she announced.</p><p></p><p>Darrien, in the meantime, stopped to examine the bloody footprints all over the area. "Humanoid prints," he observed. "Bigger than a man, but smaller than a hill giant."</p><p></p><p>"Trolls?" guessed Hagan.</p><p></p><p>"No, they only have three toes," Darrien answered. "And trolls usually go without shoes. Whoever made these were wearing either soft boots or moccasins." He absently scratched Grumps Junior's head as the bear ambled over to sniff the bloody footprints.</p><p></p><p>"Hey! Zaralia's missing her head, too!" called Castillan from the side of the fallen cloud giantess. It looked like her head had been taken off with a single strike from a bladed weapon - and likely after her death, given the pool of blood staining the cloud-stuff around her neck. The bounder noted several stab wounds on her body; Gozragoth had quite a few wounds on him as well. It looks like their heads had both been harvested after they had been slain.</p><p></p><p>"I'm going to see if there were any eyewitnesses, as it were," announced Finoula before casting a <em>speak with plants</em> spell. As she did so, targeting the still-standing giant apple tree, she noticed there were no apples remaining on the lower half of the tree. Looking over at the fallen tree, she saw almost no apples on it, either. "What happened?" she asked the tree. "Who killed the giant and the dragon?" She refrained from using their names, not knowing whether an apple tree would have known them by name.</p><p></p><p>"Elves," replied the apple tree. "Big elves." That sent Finoula thinking furiously: were there such things as giant elves? "Where did they come from?" she asked the tree.</p><p></p><p>"The sky," came the answer. That immediately put the thought of avariels - a rare race of winged elves - into her mind, but they were no larger than the standard elf, just with feathered wings growing from their backs. They couldn't have been responsible for the large footprints all over the cloud island.</p><p></p><p>"How did they get here?" Finoula prompted. "Did they come in a flying ship, like ours, or maybe just suddenly appear out of thin air?"</p><p></p><p>"They walked," the tree replied. Finoula repeated her conversation to the others, since her spell allowed only her to speak to the tree and understand its replies. "<em>Air walk</em> spell," Gilbert suggested.</p><p></p><p>"I'm checking inside," Castillan announced, opening the human-sized door embedded in the larger, giant-sized door leading into Zaralia's home. There was a pot of water over the remains of a cook-fire; it looked as if Zaralia had been in the process of making tea when she was interrupted by the violent intruders - whoever they might be. But no sooner had the elven bounder walked inside the structure then a shriek split the silence of the cloud island. Darrien was the first to notice a draconic form streaking down from overhead, but before he could warn the others it had opened its mouth wide and spewed forth a cone of freezing-cold ice particles, catching Hagan and Wezhley, Taihar, and MARCI in the frigid blast. The dire fox dropped to the ground immediately, frozen stiff and robbed of his consciousness by the power of the dragon's breath weapon.</p><p></p><p>Hagan turned immediately up to retaliate, the words to a <em>disintegrate</em> spell ready to spill from his lips, when Gilbert cried out, "Wait! It probably his mate!" The wizard had noted that this newcomer, like the late Gozragoth, was a cloud dragon. "We no kill the dragon!" he called out in Draconic to the furious creature, still aloft just above the island with the flapping of her powerful wings. Darrien, having been taught the Draconic language by the sorceress Caliandra, added "We just got here and found the bodies! They were both friends of ours!"</p><p></p><p>The dragon's eyes narrowed at these protestations of innocence, but then she saw the bloody footprints all around the area and noted they were much too big to have been made by anyone present. "Then who is responsible for my son's slaying?" she demanded.</p><p></p><p>That at least explained her relationship to Gozragoth. "We not know, but we find out and gain vengeance for slaying!" promised Gilbert. Darrien couldn't help but notice that the portly wizard affected a pidgin way of speaking no matter what language he happened to be using.</p><p></p><p>"See to it!" demanded the cloud dragon. "I will ensure Gozragoth's lair is still intact!" And with that, she flapped her wings and dropped below the top of the island, flying down to the bottom where the opening to her son's lair lay. "Figures!" muttered Gilbert. "Son killed, but she more interested in his hoard. Dragons!"</p><p></p><p>Malrin ran over to the frozen Taihar and cast a healing spell upon him, one of the few she had prepared that day. The dire fox shivered but sat up.</p><p></p><p>"How are we going to find whoever did this?" Darrien asked Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"We familiar with both Zaralia and Gozragoth," Gilbert answered, pulling the <em>crystal ball</em> from a pocket of his robes. "I bet we--"</p><p></p><p>"Shhh!" silenced Finoula. "Do you guys hear that?"</p><p></p><p>"Hear what?" scoffed Gilbert. But Finoula moved over to the fallen apple tree, where she could have sworn she heard a groan. Bending down beneath the fallen limbs, she saw an arm sticking out from beneath the foliage. "Help me lift this!" she called, pulling a thick branch off the woman trapped beneath the tree. Binkadink and Obvious added their strength to the task, allowing Finoula to pull the pinned victim from beneath the fallen tree. Once free, they could see it was Tanabelle, Zaralia's remaining human servant, and Finoula mentally scolded herself for having forgotten that Tanabelle still lived up here with her cloud giant mistress.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink poured the contents of a healing potion down the young woman's throat - after first ensuring it wasn't one of the ones doctored by Jinkadoodle with a <em>magic mouth</em> spell calling out embarrassing phrases when the potion was imbibed - and Tanabelle stirred. She gave a gasp of fear as she recalled what she'd seen before the tree had been uprooted in the struggles of combat, but Finoula helped her through her fear and assured her she was safe. When asked to tell them what she had witnessed, she gave her story.</p><p></p><p>"It was last night, when they came," she began. "I was out in the moonlight, enjoying the night sky by the grapevines, when the raiders came walking out of the sky. I've never seen anything like them before! They looked like elves – only they stood a good nine feet tall! They wore animal skins and wielded greataxes – is that what you call them? Really big axes, in any case. I ran for the trees when I saw them, and climbed up into the lower branches to hide. Zaralia came outside and they attacked her, and she must have called Gozragoth for help because he came to help fight them off. But there were close to a dozen of them, and the mistress, she--she didn’t really stand a chance. Gozragoth was fighting off most of them, but there were still three or so who concentrated their attacks on the mistress. I saw them--they cut off--” Tanabelle broke down in tears at the memory of her mistress’s beheading.</p><p></p><p>"In any case," she continued after a moment, "the tree I was in got toppled over during the battle, and I was knocked out, I guess, until you came here and found me. And that’s all I know.”</p><p></p><p>"Giant elves?" Hagan asked Gilbert as Malrin and Finoula comforted the servant girl. "Is that even a thing?"</p><p></p><p>Gilbert was flipping through the pages of his <em>Omnibook</em>, looking for a particular passage. He'd recently added the books from Lord Darborel Ivenheart's library to his <em>Omnibook</em> and there was something familiar about all of this.... "Got it!" he cried, finding the page he'd been looking for. "There rumors of elf-like fey, nine feet tall, called lunar ravagers. They live in hunting lodges among clouds, hunt mortal animals - and men - for sport. Come out during moonlight...this them, I bet."</p><p></p><p>Finoula had beckoned Jinkadoodle over and passed Tanabelle into his care. "Take her back to the dragonfly vessel for now," she told the gnome. "We'll figure out how we're going to track down who did this."</p><p></p><p>"Found 'em!" called Gilbert in triumph. He'd returned his attention to his <em>crystal ball</em> and brought up an image of the item he'd been looking for: Zaralia's severed head. If the image in his <em>crystal ball</em> was accurate, the cloud giant's head was inside a bloodstained sack sitting up against a wooden structure. Another sack next to it was filled with oversized apples and grapes from Zaralia's cloud island.</p><p></p><p>"Pull back the sensor," Hagan suggested, looking over the heavyset wizard's shoulder. Gilbert complied and another building came into view, this one much bigger but made of the same wooden construction as the first. "That must be their hunting lodge," the half-orc sorcerer deduced.</p><p></p><p>"You get good enough look to <em>teleport</em> us there?" Gilbert asked.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, yes. Just let me know when you're ready."</p><p></p><p>Gilbert cast a <em>Rary's telepathic bond</em> spell on the group, while Malrin and each of the rangers cast a <em>barkskin</em> spell upon themselves, toughening up the surface of their skin the better to ward off attacks. Hagan cast a <em>mage armor</em> spell to protect him and Wezhley, while Gilbert cast a <em>stoneskin</em> spell covering not only himself but Mudpie as well. Then, all preparations complete, Hagan had everyone gather up around him and said the words that <em>teleported</em> the group across the unknown miles to the cloud island containing the lunar ravagers' hunting lodge.</p><p></p><p>They appeared at the side of an enormous set of wooden steps leading up to a roofed porch, in the center of which was a set of double doors, each over 10 feet tall and nearly as wide. Looking all around, Darrien saw no sentries; apparently the lunar ravagers thought themselves secure enough atop a cloud island that they didn't need to worry about security all that much. The ranger walked silently up the steps and approached the door, placing his head against the wooden surface to see if he could hear anything from within. When that came up negative, he pulled on the leftmost door and it opened without a sound.</p><p></p><p>There was no interior light within the lodge save the remains of burning embers in the massive stone fireplace on the far side of the massive room. A long, wooden table with benches sized for giants sat in the feast hall directly across from the front doors; to the right were numerous closed doors leading, presumably, to various bunkrooms, while to the left was an open area whose outer walls contained a wide variety of ferocious-looking beasts, each the product of a skilled taxidermist (and each no doubt the result of a previous moonlit hunt). Darrien saw a remorhaz rearing up in the corner, a metal-skinned bull gorgon, a griffon whose white fur blended seamlessly into equally white feathers, a giant owl with wings outspread as if in flight, and even a three-headed chimera; idly he wondered if the chimera had been stuffed as it had been in life or if the taxidermist had taken liberties with the body parts of different beasts, stitching together something that had never existed in real life. Regardless, there was real skill on display, not only in the full-bodied animals along the walls but also the numerous heads mounted behind them - including, Darrien realized with a shock, several human and elven heads; no doubt he had found the reason for the decapitation of Zaralia and Gozragoth.</p><p></p><p>The door now open, Binkadink rode Obvious into the building, the little gnome steering his jackalope mount off to the right to investigate the doors; anyone who popped out of the nearest door was going to get a gnomish glaive in the face! But upon their entrance into the building's interior, a warning alarm - in the form of a loud, avian shriek - echoed throughout the lodge, no doubt alerting everyone within that there were intruders within. That helped explain the lack of sentries on the cloud island!</p><p></p><p>Castillan followed Binkadink and Obvious into the lodge but while the gnome and his jackalope readied themselves at the closest door to the front of the building, the elven bounder readied himself around the corner from the closed door at the back end of what he assumed was the sleeping areas of the lodge. Hagan followed into the feasting hall, Malrin following cautiously, and then Finoula coming in behind her with both primary weapons out and ready.</p><p></p><p>Then Finoula ran afoul of the lodge's alarm system, which turned out to be nothing more than the giant owl in the display area, which turned out not to have been stuffed after all but a convenient place for the lunar ravagers' sentry beast to keep a watch on the sole entry into the building. The owl flew across the room on silent wings, reaching out with his talons to catch Finoula on both shoulders before her elven senses could determine he was even there. However, Darrien was still in the doorway and saw the bird's approach, peppering him with arrows before he could attempt to lift Finoula from the floor. The bird crashed lifelessly to the floor, nearly knocking Finoula from her feet.</p><p></p><p>Then the door to one of the bunkrooms opened up and Binkadink and Obvious got their first good look at a lunar ravager. This was <strong>Anzairian</strong>, the leader of this particular band of hunters, but save for his slightly larger build he was fairly typical of his race: light of skin, blond of hair, with elven-looking features including delicately-pointed ears. Somewhat incongruously - at least when compared with the elves of Binkadink's acquaintance - he wore armor composed of thick, tanned hides and overlapping layers of various animal pelts. In his hand he held a massive greataxe.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink wasted no time on an apprasial of his foe's appearance, however: he brought his gnomish glaive crashing down on Anzairian's head. Or at least he tried to; the ravager demonstrated a remarkable agility and ducked to the side at the last possible moment, which, while it didn't prevent him from taking any damage - the gnome's blade bit deep into the furs and sliced into the lunar ravager's shoulder - it did at least prevent him from being slain outright. He swung his greataxe around for a powerful blow of his own, and while he was thus engaged Obvious stabbed at him with the sharp points of his antlers. Anzairian roared, and with blood dripping down his face, sent his blade crashing into the jackalope's left shoulder.</p><p></p><p>Off to Anzairian's right, three of the doors were swung open at almost the same time and half a dozen lunar ravagers, each wearing similar garb as their leader, spilled into the open corridor between the bunkrooms. They roared in eager anticipation of the battle to follow.</p><p></p><p>However, Gilbert stepped into the room, saw the approaching ravagers all bunched up, and cast a <em>quickened Evard's black tentacles</em> spell that caught five of the barbarians in their ebon embrace. He followed up with a <em>shield</em> spell on himself and Mudpie, in case any of the axe-wielding ravagers got loose from the rubbery appendages trying to keep them in place. Behind the portly mage, MARCI stepped into the room, scanning the area with her single red eye.</p><p></p><p>Two of the lunar ravagers, despite being among the writhing tentacles of Gilbert's spell, were in position to attack the gnome and jackalope fighting off their leader and did so with gusto. And then the final door opened, revealing a female lunar ravager armed with a javelin as well as a greataxe. She hurled the javelin at the back of Binkadink's head before sprinting over to face the heroes bunched up at the side of the long table in the feast hall, giving a cry of anguish and hatred when she saw the corpse of her trained giant owl <strong>Maithi</strong> with five or six arrows sticking out of his back and side.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink leaped from his mount's back and concentrated on Anzairian, judging him as the greatest threat since his armor was so much more elaborate than those of the other barbarians and the fact that he stood nearly a foot taller than the next-tallest ravager. While the gnome fighter traded blows with the lunar ravager leader, Obvious scampered after the female ranger about to bring her greataxe down upon Finoula's head. The jackalope bit into <strong>Garthalia</strong>'s arm, then leaped up into the air to take the female ravager off her feet. He managed, on the way down, to force her face-first to the floor, while he landed on her back with all of his not-inconsiderable weight pressing down upon her. Finoula took full advantage of the situation, snapping her <em>flaming whip of thorns</em> at the woman's face and then stepping closer to bring <em>Tahlmalaera</em> stabbing into her neck and shoulder.</p><p></p><p>Castillan approached the closest of the barbarians struggling to get free of the black tentacles. There was one right at the edge of the spell effect, slowly making progress to freedom; the bounder chose him as the obvious target and stabbed at him, careful not to get close enough to get pulled into the tentacles' embrace himself. And then Hagan cast a <em>chain lightning</em> spell that targeted all of the lunar ravagers he could see: the five caught in the writhing tentacles and another stuck in the doorway of a bunkroom, unable to get to the battle himself because of the way being blocked by the <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell. The lunar ravagers struck by the half-orc sorcerer's spell cried out in pain, music to Wezhley's ears, who bounced up and down on Hagan's shoulder in delight of his master's spellcasting prowess.</p><p></p><p>While Darrien pumped arrow after arrow into the ravagers he could see (some were now almost entirely encompassed by writhing, black tentacles), Gilbert continued his spellcasting. The barbarian just about to escape the tentacles received a <em>quickened ray of enfeeblement</em> immediately before Gilbert treated himself to a <em>see invisibility</em> spell - he didn't want anybody sneaking up on him if he could help it, and he had no idea whether these lunar ravagers could cast spells or if - they were fey, after all - they had any innate powers that could shield them from normal sight. MARCI stepped up behind Binkadink, who was still trading blows with Anzairian and injected a finger-needle into the back of the gnome's neck, sending a burst of healing fluid into his system. Then she stepped back again to give him room, all the while noting that her healing fluids reserves were getting dangerously low. And she hadn't seen any of the raw ingredients she normally harvested to manufacture the fluid within her own internal laboratory, either - that could potentially be a problem....</p><p></p><p>With guttural cries of triumph, two of the lunar ravagers finally escaped the confines of the writhing appendages of Gilbert's spell and looked about for immediate targets upon whom they could vent their wrath. One attacked Binkadink, whose attention was still focused on the ravager leader, while another brought his greataxe crashing down to split Castillan in two. Fortunately, the bounder dodged at the last moment, not avoiding damage altogether but at least preventing his immediate evisceration. Unseen in the rooms behind the <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell, the three lunar ravagers trapped and prevented from striking out at their enemies had accepted their situations and were actively doing something about it: by the act of concentration, their bodies were becoming translucent, fading slowly from view.</p><p></p><p>Garthalia tried extricating herself from underneath Obvious's bulk, to no avail - the jackalope continued jumping up and down in place, fracturing her bones with each landing. Binkadink, in the meantime, was stabbing Anzairian with his glaive, and the lunar ravager barbarian leader did not have a medical construct inject healing fluids into him as needed. It was starting to look like the battle between him and this ridiculous little gnome in the stilt-boots was going to be won by whoever could hold on the longest from blood loss from the wounds being inflicted by the other - and that was a contest Binkadink was probably going to win!</p><p></p><p>Castillan turned and stabbed at the ravager who had attacked him, getting in under his guard and thrusting his blade deep into the barbarian's lower torso. Hagan stepped around Obvious and Garthalia to position himself such that he could cast a <em>chain lightning</em> spell that would encompass the ravager attacking Castillan, the one attacking Binkadink, those entangled by the tentacles, and the barbarian leader all at once; at the last moment, he decided to include Garthalia in the mix, even though it looked like Obvious had that battle all but already sewn up. The spell just about finished her; Finoula made the killing blow to the enemy ranger with a throat-thrust by <em>Tahlmalaera</em>'s gleaming blade. Malrin, standing behind the half-orc sorcerer, followed his spellcasting example with an <em>ice storm</em> spell centered on the <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell's area of effect, since she already knew there were only enemies caught within the constricting appendages.</p><p></p><p>Darrien could no longer see much of the lunar ravagers still being constricted by the tentacles, but he could see their locations by the thickened bands of rubbery, ebony tendrils all but encasing them. He plucked a crystal from his <em>necklace of lightning crystals</em> and fired it off, sending a lightning bolt blasting through three of the harried barbarians. Gilbert then followed Malrin's tactic of overlapping spells with the same area of effect by sending an <em>acid fog</em> spell centered in the middle of the tentacle-mass. Crushed by rubbery appendages, blasted by lightning, and now covered in dripping acid, the lunar ravagers howled in pain and hatred.</p><p></p><p>The two barbarians free of the tentacles attacked their targets - Binkadink and Castillan - again, the former forcing the gnome to drop his guard momentarily from Anzairian to focus on this new threat. Anzairian, naturally, took advantage of the gnome's split focus, bringing his greataxe down on the gnome's red dragonhide armor. But then Obvious, his ranger foe having been slain, came to his rider's assistance by leaping at the younger ravager, allowing Binkadink to renew his focus against the ravager leader. Castillan did his best fending off the attacks of his own dedicated foe, but he usually did better striking from an unexpected direction and he didn't have that opportunity with this one facing him and giving him his full attention.</p><p></p><p>Unseen in the back, the three lunar ravagers forced to stay out of combat thus far had fully vanished. Hagan sent another <em>chain lightning</em> spell arcing off to all the combatants he could see, even those who were at the moment almost entirely covered in strangling tentacles.</p><p></p><p>Seeing her brother start to stagger from his wounds, Malrin instinctively wildshaped into an owl and flew up to his shoulder, intending to fire off a healing spell, but then belatedly recalled that she had no more such spells at hand. The best she could do was to use her <em>staff of healing</em> - and that had been subsumed into her owl form as soon as she wildshaped. Cursing her stupidity, she flapped away from Castillan, giving him room to maneuver as she resumed her elven form. But MARCI, seeing the situation, stepped boldly up to the bounder and injected him with the last few ounces of her healing mixture; she had calculated he was unlikely to survive long without such assistance on her part.</p><p></p><p>Finoula raced up to assist Obvious with his foe, while Darrien switched to his scimitar and did the same to help fight off Castillan's current enemy. Binkadink was still fighting off Anzairian, who throughout the battle thus far had yet to make it fully out of the doorway of his bunkroom.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert was just about to cast a <em>fire shield</em> spell on himself when he got a surprise from a sudden direction: the front door to the lodge building! In raced the three lunar ravagers who had been trapped in the back rooms by the portly wizard's <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell, having <em>teleported</em> to the front of the building when it was apparent they weren't going to get to fight anyone any other way. Two greataxes came crashing down on the startled wizard and another caused sparks to fly from Mudpie's rocky hide; fortunately, the two were both covered by Gilbert's <em>stoneskin</em> spell and thus neither blow did as much damage at it would have otherwise. But now there were many more active combatants on the field, three more than to Gilbert's liking!</p><p></p><p>Castillan's opponent got in a good blow, sending the bounder staggering backwards again; had he not just been healed by MARCI it's likely he would have dropped by the force of the lunar ravager's attack. But now his sister met him, touching her magical staff to his shoulder, and he felt the cooling flow of healing energy course through his body. "Thanks, sis!" he called behind him as he leaped forward to the attack once more.</p><p></p><p>Hagan sent another <em>chain lightning</em> spell doing the rounds; he liked to stick with what worked and this particular spell was working just fine, especially against those caught in the embrace of the black tentacles and thus unable to spread out beyond the range of the half-orc's spell. Malrin, seeing the three newcomers attacking Gilbert and Mudpie, cast a <em>summon nature's ally</em> spell that brought a 16-foot-tall earth elemental into being behind the trio; it smashed a rocky fist down upon the head of the middle ravager, clocking him but good. That got Finoula's attention, and, seeing them all lined up as they were, she activated her <em>lightning amulet</em> and blasted through all three of them, reverting to elven form at the far end, by the beginning of the trophy section of the lodge.</p><p></p><p>Darrien resheathed his scimitar and brought his <em>Arachnibow</em> back out, now that he had three more targets out in the open to hit. Five arrows protruded from the chest of the nearest ravager in as many seconds, and blood spilled from the astonished fey's mouth.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert, in the meantime, was kicking himself that he hadn't prepared any spells that would increase Mudpie's size; the poor earth elemental was a mere three feet tall and was greatly outmatched by the lunar ravagers surrounding him. So Gilbert cast the spell he did have available, a <em>quickened</em> version of <em>Otiluke's resilient sphere</em>, encasing his familiar in a virtually unbreakable globe of force which would take Mudpie out of the fight - but see to his continued survival. Then he cast his most powerful spell to date, one he'd never yet cast in combat: <em>time stop</em>. Immediately, everything seemed to freeze in place around him. Realizing this bubble of frozen time would last a mere few subjective seconds, Gilbert put the borrowed time to good use, drinking down a healing potion while he moved across to the other side of the massive feast-table and out of immediate reach of any of the current combatants; then cast the <em>fire shield</em> he was about to cast when the trio came bursting in on him; and then cast an <em>invisibility</em> spell on himself. As the world around him snapped back into real time, he chuckled quietly to himself, thinking nobody would be able to target him now: from their reference point, he would have just vanished from sight in the blink of an eye and nobody would have any idea where he had gone!</p><p></p><p>Binkadink was feeling the effects of his combat with Anzairian; he desperately needed some healing but didn't dare take the time to grab up a potion from his backpack. MARCI analyzed the situation, internally switched mechanisms in her fingers, and protruded a different needle from her finger, stabbing it into the back of the gnome's neck. It wouldn't heal damage from the inside of the body like her healing mixture would, but this would at least reduce the gnome's ability to feel pain; as such, it would prevent the distractions that might make the difference in battle. Despite the hard metal of MARCI's construction, she didn't once consider joining the battle herself (it's likely she could pack quite a wallop with fists of metal!); she hadn't been built for that purpose. But the injection did the job, for shortly after, Anzairian fell over, slain at last by the little gnome in what had to have been one of the longest battles of his life.</p><p></p><p>The lunar ravager closest to Finoula got the sudden bright idea to try to grapple her, thinking to pick her up and throw her off the side of the cloud island, but the edge of <em>Tahlmalaera</em>'s blade quickly put an end to that notion. The other two turned and attacked the huge earth elemental behind them. By concentrating its attacks upon one of the two, the earth elemental's pounding fists brought one of them to the ground, where a stomp to the head ended his life. Finoula used another charge of her <em>lightning necklace</em> to blast through the two remaining lunar ravager reinforcements, reversing her previous course and ending up back where she had started. That was enough to slay one of them (the one Darrien had previously peppered with arrows), leaving a single foe out by the front doors, who Gilbert killed with the application of a simple <em>magic missile</em> spell. It brought him back to full visibility, but he had seen that his tentacles had slain the ravagers caught up in their embrace; he dismissed the spell and allowed the slain foes to collapse lifelessly to the floor of the lodge.</p><p></p><p>Obvious and Castillan were now facing the one remaining foe, and the look on his face told he recognized the futility of his stand but was determined to go down fighting nonetheless. However, Hagan slew him - somewhat anticlimactically - with a <em>polar ray</em> spell.</p><p></p><p>"Is that it?" asked Binkadink, looking around for any further enemies. But that was it; the heroes had cleared the lodge out of the lunar ravagers who had slain Gozragoth and Zaralia for sport. Gilbert released Mudpie from the <em>Otiluke's resilient sphere</em> and the group commenced a thorough exploration of the lodge. One thing soon became abundantly clear: these lunar ravagers liked taking more than the heads of their enemies, for their bunkrooms were filled with coins, gems, jewelry, and objects of art from around the globe. Castillan's jaw seemed to keep opening of its own accord with each new chest of treasure they uncovered. Everything was dropped into the group's <em>portable hole</em> for further investigation later; once the place had been picked clean, Hagan <em>teleported</em> the group back to Zaralia's cloud island, where Jinkadoodle had taken Tanabelle for safekeeping.</p><p></p><p>"Do you think your mistress would return to life in a different form?" asked Malrin. "I can try casting a <em>reincarnate</em> spell on her, or on the dragon, if you like."</p><p></p><p>"That not good idea," countered Gilbert Fung. "Dragons very vain; they see coming back as different type of dragon personal insult, probably attack you for effrontery. Plus," he added, "we don't need Gozragoth - we got his mom! Maybe she stay on as cloud island guardian!"</p><p></p><p>"But what about Zaralia?" asked Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"I don't think she'd want to come back, either," said Tanabelle sadly. "She's been terribly depressed, ever since she was responsible for Junia's death." Under the control of a cerebrilith. the cloud giant had thrown one of her two faithful human servants off the edge of the cloud island, after having ripped her entire arm off at the shoulder. "I suspect she's happier in the afterlife."</p><p></p><p>"Then what about you?" prompted Hagan. "Will you stay here, all by yourself?" Tanabelle looked around and shivered. "I don't think so," she said. "For one thing, I have no way to get about, like Zaralia did. And as much as I loved living here, now it's filled with bad memories."</p><p></p><p>"Then you are more than welcome to come home with us," offered Castillan. "We live in a stone keep, owned by a pair of dwarves. They would be more than happy to take you on as a permanent member of their household. They...lost their daughter, some months back." Finoula looked away at the mention of Ingebold Battershield, her beloved Battle-Sister. She, like Helga and Aerik, was still saddened at the loss of the dwarven cleric.</p><p></p><p>"And we're still planning on using the island as a landing site for the dragonfly ship," offered up Jinkadoodle. "You'd be more than welcome to come back up here and visit, when you had the mind to."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you," replied Tanabelle. "I think I would like that." And then the heroes led her down to the extradimensional hold of the ship, and from there to Battershield Keep and her new home.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>This session was somewhat truncated; we normally start play around noon and then let the length of the session be dictated by the events as they play out (but usually anywhere from four to six hours); this time, about 45 minutes into the first hour, Dan suddenly remembered to tell me they had a "hard stop" time at 4 PM. That was a bit of a bummer, especially after having waited several weeks since our last Kordovian gaming session. So the lunar ravagers caught up in Gilbert's tentacles, having failed their initial grapple checks, just got left there for expedience. We ended up slaying the last enemy with mere minutes to spare, and had to worry about treasure allocation over email afterwards (and, when nothing much came of that, we finished up the following Wednesday at the beginning of my son Logan's "Durnhill Conscripts" game session). But we've already scheduled the next session for two weeks from this one, so that's a welcome step in the right direction.</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: My Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" T-shirt, given the lunar tie-in with the main adversaries of this adventure.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7620630, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 62: RAVAGER LODGE[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 17[/INDENT] [INDENT] Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 17[/INDENT] [INDENT] Darrien, half-elf ranger 17[/INDENT] [INDENT] Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 17[/INDENT] [INDENT] Gilbert Fung, human wizard 17[/INDENT] [INDENT] Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 17[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 6[/INDENT] [INDENT] Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 11[/INDENT] [INDENT] MARCI, humanoid construct[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 9 June 2019 - - - Castillan stood on the top of the northeastern tower of Battershield Keep, looking out over the battlements. It was a sunny, peaceful day - or it was, until the dragonfly vessel came plummeting down out of the sky. It slowed at the last moment and came to a rough landing in the clearing just outside the stone keep. The elven bounder knew something was up at once, for Jinkadoodle normally parked the vessel on the floating sky-island of a cloud giantess friend of theirs, Zaralia, and used the [I]teleport runes[/I] hidden in one of the extradimensional lower deck rooms to transport himself instantly to the keep. The fact that the gnome had brought the dragonfly vessel here surely meant something was up. Sure enough, Jinkadoodle popped up onto the upper deck of the wooden ship and flipped the rope ladder down over the sides, starting to climb down before it had even completely unfurled. "Guys!" he cried. "Guys! There's trouble!" Castillan leaped over the battlements, using his bouncer training to slide down the front side of the keep's walls and slow his fall. He hit the ground before Jinkadoodle did and ran across the lowered drawbridge to see what the problem might be. Behind him he could hear somebody - Binkadink, likely - raising the lowered portcullis so the other adventurers could follow him outside the keep. "What is it? What's the matter?" prompted Castillan once the gnome pilot had leaped to the ground. The others raced up behind him while the little gnome paused to catch his breath. "Blood - blood everywhere!" he cried. "And bodies; I think Zaralia's dead, and there's a dead dragon up there as well! I was gonna land at the edge of the cloud island like normal, only I saw the carnage - I didn't want to leave the ship up there in case whoever did that is still up there!" "Good call," agreed Gilbert Fung. "Come on - we go check it out!" And then he turned and started back into the keep. "Gilbert -- the ship's this way!" Castillan called after him. "I know - I not climbing ladder if I can help it! I take carpet, meet you inside!" And while some of the others followed Jinkadoodle back up the rope ladder to the dragonfly vessel's upper deck, the portly mage went over to where the [I]carpet of teleportation[/I] lay over by the stables in the courtyard of Battershield Keep. Darrien, Finoula, and Binkadink opted to take the carpet so they could bring along their animal companions; after a moment's hesitation, Malrin followed suit with Taihar, her dire fox. Once Grumps Junior, Taihar, Wrath, and Obvious had been teleported to the ship's interior, Binkadink rolled the carpet up and took it with him up the dragonfly vessel's rope ladder so they'd have it with them up on the cloud island; it was the easiest way for the animals to disembark. Once everyone was on board Jinkadoodle brought the dragonfly ship up off the ground and flying into the clouds. It was the matter of less than ten minutes of flying before he approached Zaralia's cloud island. The first thing they noticed was that one of the two enormous apple trees - which grew apples the size of pumpkins - had been knocked over on its side. Near the tree was the sinuous body of Gozragoth, the cloud dragon who laired in the lower levels of Zaralia's island. And closer to the main building lay Zaralia herself, as evidenced by the blue tint to her skin. But the white cloud-stuff all around them was stained reddish-brown, the color of dried blood. The dragonfly vessel made a perfect four-point landing on its leg-struts in its usual position (the far side of the island, opposite Zaralia's dwelling and observatory) and Castillan dropped the rope ladder over the side. The heroes disembarked, Jinkadoodle following worriedly in their wake. As Hagan and Darrien approached the body of the cloud dragon, the half-orc sorcerer gave a sharp intake of breath as he noticed something he hadn't seen from the ship: the dragon's head was missing! Judging from the jaggedness of the neck-stump, it looked as if it had been chopped off with a bladed weapon. MARCI approached the headless draconic corpse and shone her red scanner-light over the creature's body. "This creature has been dead for several hours," she announced. Darrien, in the meantime, stopped to examine the bloody footprints all over the area. "Humanoid prints," he observed. "Bigger than a man, but smaller than a hill giant." "Trolls?" guessed Hagan. "No, they only have three toes," Darrien answered. "And trolls usually go without shoes. Whoever made these were wearing either soft boots or moccasins." He absently scratched Grumps Junior's head as the bear ambled over to sniff the bloody footprints. "Hey! Zaralia's missing her head, too!" called Castillan from the side of the fallen cloud giantess. It looked like her head had been taken off with a single strike from a bladed weapon - and likely after her death, given the pool of blood staining the cloud-stuff around her neck. The bounder noted several stab wounds on her body; Gozragoth had quite a few wounds on him as well. It looks like their heads had both been harvested after they had been slain. "I'm going to see if there were any eyewitnesses, as it were," announced Finoula before casting a [I]speak with plants[/I] spell. As she did so, targeting the still-standing giant apple tree, she noticed there were no apples remaining on the lower half of the tree. Looking over at the fallen tree, she saw almost no apples on it, either. "What happened?" she asked the tree. "Who killed the giant and the dragon?" She refrained from using their names, not knowing whether an apple tree would have known them by name. "Elves," replied the apple tree. "Big elves." That sent Finoula thinking furiously: were there such things as giant elves? "Where did they come from?" she asked the tree. "The sky," came the answer. That immediately put the thought of avariels - a rare race of winged elves - into her mind, but they were no larger than the standard elf, just with feathered wings growing from their backs. They couldn't have been responsible for the large footprints all over the cloud island. "How did they get here?" Finoula prompted. "Did they come in a flying ship, like ours, or maybe just suddenly appear out of thin air?" "They walked," the tree replied. Finoula repeated her conversation to the others, since her spell allowed only her to speak to the tree and understand its replies. "[I]Air walk[/I] spell," Gilbert suggested. "I'm checking inside," Castillan announced, opening the human-sized door embedded in the larger, giant-sized door leading into Zaralia's home. There was a pot of water over the remains of a cook-fire; it looked as if Zaralia had been in the process of making tea when she was interrupted by the violent intruders - whoever they might be. But no sooner had the elven bounder walked inside the structure then a shriek split the silence of the cloud island. Darrien was the first to notice a draconic form streaking down from overhead, but before he could warn the others it had opened its mouth wide and spewed forth a cone of freezing-cold ice particles, catching Hagan and Wezhley, Taihar, and MARCI in the frigid blast. The dire fox dropped to the ground immediately, frozen stiff and robbed of his consciousness by the power of the dragon's breath weapon. Hagan turned immediately up to retaliate, the words to a [I]disintegrate[/I] spell ready to spill from his lips, when Gilbert cried out, "Wait! It probably his mate!" The wizard had noted that this newcomer, like the late Gozragoth, was a cloud dragon. "We no kill the dragon!" he called out in Draconic to the furious creature, still aloft just above the island with the flapping of her powerful wings. Darrien, having been taught the Draconic language by the sorceress Caliandra, added "We just got here and found the bodies! They were both friends of ours!" The dragon's eyes narrowed at these protestations of innocence, but then she saw the bloody footprints all around the area and noted they were much too big to have been made by anyone present. "Then who is responsible for my son's slaying?" she demanded. That at least explained her relationship to Gozragoth. "We not know, but we find out and gain vengeance for slaying!" promised Gilbert. Darrien couldn't help but notice that the portly wizard affected a pidgin way of speaking no matter what language he happened to be using. "See to it!" demanded the cloud dragon. "I will ensure Gozragoth's lair is still intact!" And with that, she flapped her wings and dropped below the top of the island, flying down to the bottom where the opening to her son's lair lay. "Figures!" muttered Gilbert. "Son killed, but she more interested in his hoard. Dragons!" Malrin ran over to the frozen Taihar and cast a healing spell upon him, one of the few she had prepared that day. The dire fox shivered but sat up. "How are we going to find whoever did this?" Darrien asked Gilbert. "We familiar with both Zaralia and Gozragoth," Gilbert answered, pulling the [I]crystal ball[/I] from a pocket of his robes. "I bet we--" "Shhh!" silenced Finoula. "Do you guys hear that?" "Hear what?" scoffed Gilbert. But Finoula moved over to the fallen apple tree, where she could have sworn she heard a groan. Bending down beneath the fallen limbs, she saw an arm sticking out from beneath the foliage. "Help me lift this!" she called, pulling a thick branch off the woman trapped beneath the tree. Binkadink and Obvious added their strength to the task, allowing Finoula to pull the pinned victim from beneath the fallen tree. Once free, they could see it was Tanabelle, Zaralia's remaining human servant, and Finoula mentally scolded herself for having forgotten that Tanabelle still lived up here with her cloud giant mistress. Binkadink poured the contents of a healing potion down the young woman's throat - after first ensuring it wasn't one of the ones doctored by Jinkadoodle with a [I]magic mouth[/I] spell calling out embarrassing phrases when the potion was imbibed - and Tanabelle stirred. She gave a gasp of fear as she recalled what she'd seen before the tree had been uprooted in the struggles of combat, but Finoula helped her through her fear and assured her she was safe. When asked to tell them what she had witnessed, she gave her story. "It was last night, when they came," she began. "I was out in the moonlight, enjoying the night sky by the grapevines, when the raiders came walking out of the sky. I've never seen anything like them before! They looked like elves – only they stood a good nine feet tall! They wore animal skins and wielded greataxes – is that what you call them? Really big axes, in any case. I ran for the trees when I saw them, and climbed up into the lower branches to hide. Zaralia came outside and they attacked her, and she must have called Gozragoth for help because he came to help fight them off. But there were close to a dozen of them, and the mistress, she--she didn’t really stand a chance. Gozragoth was fighting off most of them, but there were still three or so who concentrated their attacks on the mistress. I saw them--they cut off--” Tanabelle broke down in tears at the memory of her mistress’s beheading. "In any case," she continued after a moment, "the tree I was in got toppled over during the battle, and I was knocked out, I guess, until you came here and found me. And that’s all I know.” "Giant elves?" Hagan asked Gilbert as Malrin and Finoula comforted the servant girl. "Is that even a thing?" Gilbert was flipping through the pages of his [I]Omnibook[/I], looking for a particular passage. He'd recently added the books from Lord Darborel Ivenheart's library to his [I]Omnibook[/I] and there was something familiar about all of this.... "Got it!" he cried, finding the page he'd been looking for. "There rumors of elf-like fey, nine feet tall, called lunar ravagers. They live in hunting lodges among clouds, hunt mortal animals - and men - for sport. Come out during moonlight...this them, I bet." Finoula had beckoned Jinkadoodle over and passed Tanabelle into his care. "Take her back to the dragonfly vessel for now," she told the gnome. "We'll figure out how we're going to track down who did this." "Found 'em!" called Gilbert in triumph. He'd returned his attention to his [I]crystal ball[/I] and brought up an image of the item he'd been looking for: Zaralia's severed head. If the image in his [I]crystal ball[/I] was accurate, the cloud giant's head was inside a bloodstained sack sitting up against a wooden structure. Another sack next to it was filled with oversized apples and grapes from Zaralia's cloud island. "Pull back the sensor," Hagan suggested, looking over the heavyset wizard's shoulder. Gilbert complied and another building came into view, this one much bigger but made of the same wooden construction as the first. "That must be their hunting lodge," the half-orc sorcerer deduced. "You get good enough look to [I]teleport[/I] us there?" Gilbert asked. "Oh, yes. Just let me know when you're ready." Gilbert cast a [I]Rary's telepathic bond[/I] spell on the group, while Malrin and each of the rangers cast a [I]barkskin[/I] spell upon themselves, toughening up the surface of their skin the better to ward off attacks. Hagan cast a [I]mage armor[/I] spell to protect him and Wezhley, while Gilbert cast a [I]stoneskin[/I] spell covering not only himself but Mudpie as well. Then, all preparations complete, Hagan had everyone gather up around him and said the words that [I]teleported[/I] the group across the unknown miles to the cloud island containing the lunar ravagers' hunting lodge. They appeared at the side of an enormous set of wooden steps leading up to a roofed porch, in the center of which was a set of double doors, each over 10 feet tall and nearly as wide. Looking all around, Darrien saw no sentries; apparently the lunar ravagers thought themselves secure enough atop a cloud island that they didn't need to worry about security all that much. The ranger walked silently up the steps and approached the door, placing his head against the wooden surface to see if he could hear anything from within. When that came up negative, he pulled on the leftmost door and it opened without a sound. There was no interior light within the lodge save the remains of burning embers in the massive stone fireplace on the far side of the massive room. A long, wooden table with benches sized for giants sat in the feast hall directly across from the front doors; to the right were numerous closed doors leading, presumably, to various bunkrooms, while to the left was an open area whose outer walls contained a wide variety of ferocious-looking beasts, each the product of a skilled taxidermist (and each no doubt the result of a previous moonlit hunt). Darrien saw a remorhaz rearing up in the corner, a metal-skinned bull gorgon, a griffon whose white fur blended seamlessly into equally white feathers, a giant owl with wings outspread as if in flight, and even a three-headed chimera; idly he wondered if the chimera had been stuffed as it had been in life or if the taxidermist had taken liberties with the body parts of different beasts, stitching together something that had never existed in real life. Regardless, there was real skill on display, not only in the full-bodied animals along the walls but also the numerous heads mounted behind them - including, Darrien realized with a shock, several human and elven heads; no doubt he had found the reason for the decapitation of Zaralia and Gozragoth. The door now open, Binkadink rode Obvious into the building, the little gnome steering his jackalope mount off to the right to investigate the doors; anyone who popped out of the nearest door was going to get a gnomish glaive in the face! But upon their entrance into the building's interior, a warning alarm - in the form of a loud, avian shriek - echoed throughout the lodge, no doubt alerting everyone within that there were intruders within. That helped explain the lack of sentries on the cloud island! Castillan followed Binkadink and Obvious into the lodge but while the gnome and his jackalope readied themselves at the closest door to the front of the building, the elven bounder readied himself around the corner from the closed door at the back end of what he assumed was the sleeping areas of the lodge. Hagan followed into the feasting hall, Malrin following cautiously, and then Finoula coming in behind her with both primary weapons out and ready. Then Finoula ran afoul of the lodge's alarm system, which turned out to be nothing more than the giant owl in the display area, which turned out not to have been stuffed after all but a convenient place for the lunar ravagers' sentry beast to keep a watch on the sole entry into the building. The owl flew across the room on silent wings, reaching out with his talons to catch Finoula on both shoulders before her elven senses could determine he was even there. However, Darrien was still in the doorway and saw the bird's approach, peppering him with arrows before he could attempt to lift Finoula from the floor. The bird crashed lifelessly to the floor, nearly knocking Finoula from her feet. Then the door to one of the bunkrooms opened up and Binkadink and Obvious got their first good look at a lunar ravager. This was [B]Anzairian[/B], the leader of this particular band of hunters, but save for his slightly larger build he was fairly typical of his race: light of skin, blond of hair, with elven-looking features including delicately-pointed ears. Somewhat incongruously - at least when compared with the elves of Binkadink's acquaintance - he wore armor composed of thick, tanned hides and overlapping layers of various animal pelts. In his hand he held a massive greataxe. Binkadink wasted no time on an apprasial of his foe's appearance, however: he brought his gnomish glaive crashing down on Anzairian's head. Or at least he tried to; the ravager demonstrated a remarkable agility and ducked to the side at the last possible moment, which, while it didn't prevent him from taking any damage - the gnome's blade bit deep into the furs and sliced into the lunar ravager's shoulder - it did at least prevent him from being slain outright. He swung his greataxe around for a powerful blow of his own, and while he was thus engaged Obvious stabbed at him with the sharp points of his antlers. Anzairian roared, and with blood dripping down his face, sent his blade crashing into the jackalope's left shoulder. Off to Anzairian's right, three of the doors were swung open at almost the same time and half a dozen lunar ravagers, each wearing similar garb as their leader, spilled into the open corridor between the bunkrooms. They roared in eager anticipation of the battle to follow. However, Gilbert stepped into the room, saw the approaching ravagers all bunched up, and cast a [I]quickened Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell that caught five of the barbarians in their ebon embrace. He followed up with a [I]shield[/I] spell on himself and Mudpie, in case any of the axe-wielding ravagers got loose from the rubbery appendages trying to keep them in place. Behind the portly mage, MARCI stepped into the room, scanning the area with her single red eye. Two of the lunar ravagers, despite being among the writhing tentacles of Gilbert's spell, were in position to attack the gnome and jackalope fighting off their leader and did so with gusto. And then the final door opened, revealing a female lunar ravager armed with a javelin as well as a greataxe. She hurled the javelin at the back of Binkadink's head before sprinting over to face the heroes bunched up at the side of the long table in the feast hall, giving a cry of anguish and hatred when she saw the corpse of her trained giant owl [B]Maithi[/B] with five or six arrows sticking out of his back and side. Binkadink leaped from his mount's back and concentrated on Anzairian, judging him as the greatest threat since his armor was so much more elaborate than those of the other barbarians and the fact that he stood nearly a foot taller than the next-tallest ravager. While the gnome fighter traded blows with the lunar ravager leader, Obvious scampered after the female ranger about to bring her greataxe down upon Finoula's head. The jackalope bit into [B]Garthalia[/B]'s arm, then leaped up into the air to take the female ravager off her feet. He managed, on the way down, to force her face-first to the floor, while he landed on her back with all of his not-inconsiderable weight pressing down upon her. Finoula took full advantage of the situation, snapping her [I]flaming whip of thorns[/I] at the woman's face and then stepping closer to bring [I]Tahlmalaera[/I] stabbing into her neck and shoulder. Castillan approached the closest of the barbarians struggling to get free of the black tentacles. There was one right at the edge of the spell effect, slowly making progress to freedom; the bounder chose him as the obvious target and stabbed at him, careful not to get close enough to get pulled into the tentacles' embrace himself. And then Hagan cast a [I]chain lightning[/I] spell that targeted all of the lunar ravagers he could see: the five caught in the writhing tentacles and another stuck in the doorway of a bunkroom, unable to get to the battle himself because of the way being blocked by the [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell. The lunar ravagers struck by the half-orc sorcerer's spell cried out in pain, music to Wezhley's ears, who bounced up and down on Hagan's shoulder in delight of his master's spellcasting prowess. While Darrien pumped arrow after arrow into the ravagers he could see (some were now almost entirely encompassed by writhing, black tentacles), Gilbert continued his spellcasting. The barbarian just about to escape the tentacles received a [I]quickened ray of enfeeblement[/I] immediately before Gilbert treated himself to a [I]see invisibility[/I] spell - he didn't want anybody sneaking up on him if he could help it, and he had no idea whether these lunar ravagers could cast spells or if - they were fey, after all - they had any innate powers that could shield them from normal sight. MARCI stepped up behind Binkadink, who was still trading blows with Anzairian and injected a finger-needle into the back of the gnome's neck, sending a burst of healing fluid into his system. Then she stepped back again to give him room, all the while noting that her healing fluids reserves were getting dangerously low. And she hadn't seen any of the raw ingredients she normally harvested to manufacture the fluid within her own internal laboratory, either - that could potentially be a problem.... With guttural cries of triumph, two of the lunar ravagers finally escaped the confines of the writhing appendages of Gilbert's spell and looked about for immediate targets upon whom they could vent their wrath. One attacked Binkadink, whose attention was still focused on the ravager leader, while another brought his greataxe crashing down to split Castillan in two. Fortunately, the bounder dodged at the last moment, not avoiding damage altogether but at least preventing his immediate evisceration. Unseen in the rooms behind the [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell, the three lunar ravagers trapped and prevented from striking out at their enemies had accepted their situations and were actively doing something about it: by the act of concentration, their bodies were becoming translucent, fading slowly from view. Garthalia tried extricating herself from underneath Obvious's bulk, to no avail - the jackalope continued jumping up and down in place, fracturing her bones with each landing. Binkadink, in the meantime, was stabbing Anzairian with his glaive, and the lunar ravager barbarian leader did not have a medical construct inject healing fluids into him as needed. It was starting to look like the battle between him and this ridiculous little gnome in the stilt-boots was going to be won by whoever could hold on the longest from blood loss from the wounds being inflicted by the other - and that was a contest Binkadink was probably going to win! Castillan turned and stabbed at the ravager who had attacked him, getting in under his guard and thrusting his blade deep into the barbarian's lower torso. Hagan stepped around Obvious and Garthalia to position himself such that he could cast a [I]chain lightning[/I] spell that would encompass the ravager attacking Castillan, the one attacking Binkadink, those entangled by the tentacles, and the barbarian leader all at once; at the last moment, he decided to include Garthalia in the mix, even though it looked like Obvious had that battle all but already sewn up. The spell just about finished her; Finoula made the killing blow to the enemy ranger with a throat-thrust by [I]Tahlmalaera[/I]'s gleaming blade. Malrin, standing behind the half-orc sorcerer, followed his spellcasting example with an [I]ice storm[/I] spell centered on the [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell's area of effect, since she already knew there were only enemies caught within the constricting appendages. Darrien could no longer see much of the lunar ravagers still being constricted by the tentacles, but he could see their locations by the thickened bands of rubbery, ebony tendrils all but encasing them. He plucked a crystal from his [I]necklace of lightning crystals[/I] and fired it off, sending a lightning bolt blasting through three of the harried barbarians. Gilbert then followed Malrin's tactic of overlapping spells with the same area of effect by sending an [I]acid fog[/I] spell centered in the middle of the tentacle-mass. Crushed by rubbery appendages, blasted by lightning, and now covered in dripping acid, the lunar ravagers howled in pain and hatred. The two barbarians free of the tentacles attacked their targets - Binkadink and Castillan - again, the former forcing the gnome to drop his guard momentarily from Anzairian to focus on this new threat. Anzairian, naturally, took advantage of the gnome's split focus, bringing his greataxe down on the gnome's red dragonhide armor. But then Obvious, his ranger foe having been slain, came to his rider's assistance by leaping at the younger ravager, allowing Binkadink to renew his focus against the ravager leader. Castillan did his best fending off the attacks of his own dedicated foe, but he usually did better striking from an unexpected direction and he didn't have that opportunity with this one facing him and giving him his full attention. Unseen in the back, the three lunar ravagers forced to stay out of combat thus far had fully vanished. Hagan sent another [I]chain lightning[/I] spell arcing off to all the combatants he could see, even those who were at the moment almost entirely covered in strangling tentacles. Seeing her brother start to stagger from his wounds, Malrin instinctively wildshaped into an owl and flew up to his shoulder, intending to fire off a healing spell, but then belatedly recalled that she had no more such spells at hand. The best she could do was to use her [I]staff of healing[/I] - and that had been subsumed into her owl form as soon as she wildshaped. Cursing her stupidity, she flapped away from Castillan, giving him room to maneuver as she resumed her elven form. But MARCI, seeing the situation, stepped boldly up to the bounder and injected him with the last few ounces of her healing mixture; she had calculated he was unlikely to survive long without such assistance on her part. Finoula raced up to assist Obvious with his foe, while Darrien switched to his scimitar and did the same to help fight off Castillan's current enemy. Binkadink was still fighting off Anzairian, who throughout the battle thus far had yet to make it fully out of the doorway of his bunkroom. Gilbert was just about to cast a [I]fire shield[/I] spell on himself when he got a surprise from a sudden direction: the front door to the lodge building! In raced the three lunar ravagers who had been trapped in the back rooms by the portly wizard's [I]Evard's black tentacles[/I] spell, having [I]teleported[/I] to the front of the building when it was apparent they weren't going to get to fight anyone any other way. Two greataxes came crashing down on the startled wizard and another caused sparks to fly from Mudpie's rocky hide; fortunately, the two were both covered by Gilbert's [I]stoneskin[/I] spell and thus neither blow did as much damage at it would have otherwise. But now there were many more active combatants on the field, three more than to Gilbert's liking! Castillan's opponent got in a good blow, sending the bounder staggering backwards again; had he not just been healed by MARCI it's likely he would have dropped by the force of the lunar ravager's attack. But now his sister met him, touching her magical staff to his shoulder, and he felt the cooling flow of healing energy course through his body. "Thanks, sis!" he called behind him as he leaped forward to the attack once more. Hagan sent another [I]chain lightning[/I] spell doing the rounds; he liked to stick with what worked and this particular spell was working just fine, especially against those caught in the embrace of the black tentacles and thus unable to spread out beyond the range of the half-orc's spell. Malrin, seeing the three newcomers attacking Gilbert and Mudpie, cast a [I]summon nature's ally[/I] spell that brought a 16-foot-tall earth elemental into being behind the trio; it smashed a rocky fist down upon the head of the middle ravager, clocking him but good. That got Finoula's attention, and, seeing them all lined up as they were, she activated her [I]lightning amulet[/I] and blasted through all three of them, reverting to elven form at the far end, by the beginning of the trophy section of the lodge. Darrien resheathed his scimitar and brought his [I]Arachnibow[/I] back out, now that he had three more targets out in the open to hit. Five arrows protruded from the chest of the nearest ravager in as many seconds, and blood spilled from the astonished fey's mouth. Gilbert, in the meantime, was kicking himself that he hadn't prepared any spells that would increase Mudpie's size; the poor earth elemental was a mere three feet tall and was greatly outmatched by the lunar ravagers surrounding him. So Gilbert cast the spell he did have available, a [I]quickened[/I] version of [I]Otiluke's resilient sphere[/I], encasing his familiar in a virtually unbreakable globe of force which would take Mudpie out of the fight - but see to his continued survival. Then he cast his most powerful spell to date, one he'd never yet cast in combat: [I]time stop[/I]. Immediately, everything seemed to freeze in place around him. Realizing this bubble of frozen time would last a mere few subjective seconds, Gilbert put the borrowed time to good use, drinking down a healing potion while he moved across to the other side of the massive feast-table and out of immediate reach of any of the current combatants; then cast the [I]fire shield[/I] he was about to cast when the trio came bursting in on him; and then cast an [I]invisibility[/I] spell on himself. As the world around him snapped back into real time, he chuckled quietly to himself, thinking nobody would be able to target him now: from their reference point, he would have just vanished from sight in the blink of an eye and nobody would have any idea where he had gone! Binkadink was feeling the effects of his combat with Anzairian; he desperately needed some healing but didn't dare take the time to grab up a potion from his backpack. MARCI analyzed the situation, internally switched mechanisms in her fingers, and protruded a different needle from her finger, stabbing it into the back of the gnome's neck. It wouldn't heal damage from the inside of the body like her healing mixture would, but this would at least reduce the gnome's ability to feel pain; as such, it would prevent the distractions that might make the difference in battle. Despite the hard metal of MARCI's construction, she didn't once consider joining the battle herself (it's likely she could pack quite a wallop with fists of metal!); she hadn't been built for that purpose. But the injection did the job, for shortly after, Anzairian fell over, slain at last by the little gnome in what had to have been one of the longest battles of his life. The lunar ravager closest to Finoula got the sudden bright idea to try to grapple her, thinking to pick her up and throw her off the side of the cloud island, but the edge of [I]Tahlmalaera[/I]'s blade quickly put an end to that notion. The other two turned and attacked the huge earth elemental behind them. By concentrating its attacks upon one of the two, the earth elemental's pounding fists brought one of them to the ground, where a stomp to the head ended his life. Finoula used another charge of her [I]lightning necklace[/I] to blast through the two remaining lunar ravager reinforcements, reversing her previous course and ending up back where she had started. That was enough to slay one of them (the one Darrien had previously peppered with arrows), leaving a single foe out by the front doors, who Gilbert killed with the application of a simple [I]magic missile[/I] spell. It brought him back to full visibility, but he had seen that his tentacles had slain the ravagers caught up in their embrace; he dismissed the spell and allowed the slain foes to collapse lifelessly to the floor of the lodge. Obvious and Castillan were now facing the one remaining foe, and the look on his face told he recognized the futility of his stand but was determined to go down fighting nonetheless. However, Hagan slew him - somewhat anticlimactically - with a [I]polar ray[/I] spell. "Is that it?" asked Binkadink, looking around for any further enemies. But that was it; the heroes had cleared the lodge out of the lunar ravagers who had slain Gozragoth and Zaralia for sport. Gilbert released Mudpie from the [I]Otiluke's resilient sphere[/I] and the group commenced a thorough exploration of the lodge. One thing soon became abundantly clear: these lunar ravagers liked taking more than the heads of their enemies, for their bunkrooms were filled with coins, gems, jewelry, and objects of art from around the globe. Castillan's jaw seemed to keep opening of its own accord with each new chest of treasure they uncovered. Everything was dropped into the group's [I]portable hole[/I] for further investigation later; once the place had been picked clean, Hagan [I]teleported[/I] the group back to Zaralia's cloud island, where Jinkadoodle had taken Tanabelle for safekeeping. "Do you think your mistress would return to life in a different form?" asked Malrin. "I can try casting a [I]reincarnate[/I] spell on her, or on the dragon, if you like." "That not good idea," countered Gilbert Fung. "Dragons very vain; they see coming back as different type of dragon personal insult, probably attack you for effrontery. Plus," he added, "we don't need Gozragoth - we got his mom! Maybe she stay on as cloud island guardian!" "But what about Zaralia?" asked Finoula. "I don't think she'd want to come back, either," said Tanabelle sadly. "She's been terribly depressed, ever since she was responsible for Junia's death." Under the control of a cerebrilith. the cloud giant had thrown one of her two faithful human servants off the edge of the cloud island, after having ripped her entire arm off at the shoulder. "I suspect she's happier in the afterlife." "Then what about you?" prompted Hagan. "Will you stay here, all by yourself?" Tanabelle looked around and shivered. "I don't think so," she said. "For one thing, I have no way to get about, like Zaralia did. And as much as I loved living here, now it's filled with bad memories." "Then you are more than welcome to come home with us," offered Castillan. "We live in a stone keep, owned by a pair of dwarves. They would be more than happy to take you on as a permanent member of their household. They...lost their daughter, some months back." Finoula looked away at the mention of Ingebold Battershield, her beloved Battle-Sister. She, like Helga and Aerik, was still saddened at the loss of the dwarven cleric. "And we're still planning on using the island as a landing site for the dragonfly ship," offered up Jinkadoodle. "You'd be more than welcome to come back up here and visit, when you had the mind to." "Thank you," replied Tanabelle. "I think I would like that." And then the heroes led her down to the extradimensional hold of the ship, and from there to Battershield Keep and her new home. - - - This session was somewhat truncated; we normally start play around noon and then let the length of the session be dictated by the events as they play out (but usually anywhere from four to six hours); this time, about 45 minutes into the first hour, Dan suddenly remembered to tell me they had a "hard stop" time at 4 PM. That was a bit of a bummer, especially after having waited several weeks since our last Kordovian gaming session. So the lunar ravagers caught up in Gilbert's tentacles, having failed their initial grapple checks, just got left there for expedience. We ended up slaying the last enemy with mere minutes to spare, and had to worry about treasure allocation over email afterwards (and, when nothing much came of that, we finished up the following Wednesday at the beginning of my son Logan's "Durnhill Conscripts" game session). But we've already scheduled the next session for two weeks from this one, so that's a welcome step in the right direction. - - - T-Shirt Worn: My Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" T-shirt, given the lunar tie-in with the main adversaries of this adventure. [/QUOTE]
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